Your lesson, should you choose to accept it, is to use Trust-Based Observations to create relationships with teachers, celebrate their strengths, and encourage innovation. The special agent assigned to help you with this task is author and administrator Craig Randall.

In our conversation we discuss:

• Craig’s wandering path in education,

• How current evaluation models aren’t working

• The evolution of the trust-based model to what it is today

• The two big questions: What were you doing to help students learn? If you had to do it over again, what would you do differently?

• How the evaluations become teacher-centered

• Observing authentic teaching more frequently while celebrating strengths

• Being prepared for an implementation dip

• Using this to model receiving feedback and maintaining a growth mindset for students while building teacher empathy

• Being constrained by legislatures’ ideas of ‘proper evaluations’

• How this model doesn’t mean more time out of an administrator’s schedule in the long run

• How observations fit into pandemic teaching

• Overcoming teacher resistance by building trust

• Getting the chance to observe innovation and share that with others

• How when there’s trust, people stay in their jobs

• Who Craig looks to for inspiration

Authors Mentioned:

• Brené Brown: brenebrown.com

• Anthony Bryk: Trust in Schools

• Matt O'Leary: Reclaiming Lesson Observation

• Parker Palmer: The Courage to Teach

Craig’s Information

• His website: www.trustbased.com 

• Email: craig@trustbased.com 

• Twitter: @TrustbasedCraig

• LinkedIn: Craig Randall

• His book: Trust-Based Observations: Maximizing Teaching and Learning Growth